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More than 20 killed in deadly Nepal landslide

More than 20 killed in deadly Nepal landslide

A season of heavy monsoonal rain in Nepal is now wreaking deadly havocs.

At 6:30 a.m. Friday morning, local time, a landslide ravaged the Lidi area of the Jugal Rural Municipality in Sindhupalchok. The village is located approximately 47 km (29 miles) northeast of Nepal's capital of Kathmandu.

The Katmandu Times reported that at least 22 people were killed, with another 17 people still missing as of Monday. Five critically injured people were airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu.

"Rescue work is underway, but there are difficulties due to the remote area," said Jugal village chairman Hom Narayan Shrestha late on Friday.

In addition to being a more remote location, the path traveled to get to the landslide sight has been littered with flooding and landslides of it's own.

Madhav Prasad Kafle, the Deputy Superintendent and spokesmen for District Police, said "We haven't been able to bring excavators to the incident site since the road is blocked in several places."

Kafle also confirmed that the landslide buried 17 homes and brought significant damage to another 37.

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The hill above the Lidi settlement was washed away in the heavy rainfall back on July 10, which put many of the villagers on edge due to the increased risk for a landslide. Resident Aash Bahadur Dong said locals had submitted memorandums to authorities asking to be moved to a safer location.

Rounds of rain and heavy thunderstorms struck in parts of the area this week, which may have attributed to the cause of the landslide.

Even more rainfall is anticipated across the region through the weekend as recovery efforts persist.

In late July through early August, heavy rainfall caused flooding and landslides across Sindhupalchok, killing at least 18 people.

The hilly terrain of the Himalayas is often susceptible to landslides during monsoon season, when heavy rains often inundate India, Bangladesh and Nepal from June to September each year.

A cloud of dust rises as loose earth moves down a slope at the site of a landslide in Sindhupalchowk area, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Dinesh Gole)

In 2014, the same region of Sindhupalchok was inundated by heavy rains, leading to a landslide in early August. This landslide near the Sunkoshi River had widespread effects, killing 156 people and becoming one of the most deadly landslides in Nepal's history.

Some disaster officials in Nepal have said that landslides have become more frequent lately, especially since the horrific earthquake of April 2015 in Nepal killed more than 8,700 people and destabilized much of the ground around the country.

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